April 8, 2008 on 1:44 pm | In Making | 1 Comment

So, now that I’ve (hopefully) sold my old home and bought a shiny new one (fingers crossed on the paperwork all going smoothly) I clearly need a new project to keep me busy!

Well, not really, but I certainly need a solution to the age old question of “where is all the tech going in the new flat”.

My current solution of 19 inch rackmount equiment in a DIY box on wheels is actually rather good, although very ugly and only suitable for hiding in a cupboard – which is what I’ve currently done [I'll find some pictures later]. However the nice lounge in the new Victorian flat does not have such a handy location that I can box in. Also, I wanted to do something a bit more… interesting. Also quiet, and not the “I will overheat your Xbox 360″ kind of quiet that I currently have… I have open the door to the cupboard to stop the 360 basically melting, and as that is far and away the loudest thing ever it pretty much defeats the whole point. So, some kind of sound proofing AND ventilation is required there.

You can get some great professional silent rack mount boxes from people like Kell Systems. They look and sound great, and for an office I would absolutely buy one, because (a) I would’t be paying for it and (b) it does look like OFFICE furniture, rather than home furniture.

So, my plan is to buy a nice old cabinet or set of drawers, fit rack motunts to it, stuff it with sound dampening boards/foam and then add some quiet fans to it to ensure nothing melts.

I did think finding an appropriate old cabinet would take a while, but fortunately my lovely other half Bobble is an eBay genius and found an excellent one! Even better was that no-one else had spotted it so I snapped it up for a mere ten pounds. Yay! Ok, so its going to cost 70 pounds to transport it back home, but its still a bargain to me.

Take a look – a lovely retro 50s or 60s (not sure when) TV cabinet. Excellent wood panelling and importantly, plenty of space and already has some ventilation holes! Perfect!

So, once I get this baby home I’ll measure up and no doubt make some SketchUp designs of what will go inside… hee hee!